Right! So, we're covering several topics today, including literary errata, mathematical anomalies, labor unions, FOX, the RIAA, cannibals, and whatever else springs to mind. Because of this, I will itemize conveniently, and use links wherever possible. But I promise not to wax overly long-winded about any of them, so don't be scared.
- Literary Errata
- Mathematical Anomalies
- Labor unions
- FOX
- the RIAA
- Cannibals
- Drivers, both good and bad
- Star Trek 9
- Armed Gangs In Britain
First, the lighter stuff. Literary errata!
Mkay. When you publish a novel, not only YOU should speak the language in which the novel is initially being published, but the publisher should at some point have your work read by an editor, whose job is to prevent you from looking like you're pants-on-head retarded. I realize idiomatic usages are really challenging, and stuff, but work with me here. (And while I'm at it, feel free to expand this list by sending me your own submissions for dumbass things authors do over and over. I had a lot more, but they slipped my mind while I was reading the news; I'm sure they will come to me again with time, so this list will grow.)
- There is no such thing as a "beckon call." Someone might wait at your "beck - and - call," but that's not the same thing.
- "Continue" means "to go on." Saying "continue on" means "to go on on." I'm looking at you, Terry Brooks; no, I don't give a damn how many books you've sold, that's still seriously annoying, especially when it happens once every three pages.
- One my wife spots in romance novels often is "supple," used to describe the heroine's breasts. Supple means "flexible," which only applies to a woman's breasts if you can tie them in a knot with one another; I can't imagine this could be an attractive feature for a woman to have, so please stop using it.
- Contributed by Marie, and totally agreed with: "irregardless." Seriously. Stop using this. "Regardless" means "without concern for other factors." "Irregardless" means "the person speaking is an illiterate, drooling chimp."
- While I'm at it, "disenfranchised." No. You are enfranchised, or not. You may be "disfranchised," but you cannot be "disenfranchised," because of the meanings of the words. The "franchise" referred to is citizenship, or more specifically, the right to vote. If you HAVE the right to vote, you are franchised; getting there is "enfranchisement." If you do NOT have the right to vote, you are "non-franchised." If you HAD the right to vote but somehow got screwed out of it, you are "disfranchised."
Secondly, mathematical anomalies. Know why there are so many commercial buildings standing vacant? It's because the landlords can't perform basic math.
As an example:
Say an apartment is vacant; the landlord wants $450/month for it. A prospective tenant, after looking at the property, offers $400 per month.
The landlord, unable to do math, says no.
Now; while I grant that there is for any property some floor below which the rent does not recoup costs, bear with me here:
$450 - $400 is $50. $400 / 50 is 8. In other words, for each month the apartment sits vacant, the landlord will have to rent it out to a good tenant for 8 months to make back the money he could have made - at $400 a month - renting to the first prospect.
So, if it sits vacant for 3 months, it will take 2 years and one month for him to make a profit on that empty time.
There is a commercial building in town where I live that has sat vacant and unrented since we moved to Pennsylvania.
There is another which was previously a discount "thrift" store, until the landlord raised the rent so high they were unable to make a profit, and closed their business. It has now sat vacant for seven months; assuming that he was only charging them $400 a month for 5,000 square feet of floor space - which seems vanishingly unlikely - and raised it to only $450 a month - it will take him (assuming it rents at the new rate tomorrow and remains rented for the duration,) four years and nine months to make a profit on the rate increase.
Please explain this infinite genius of business acumen to me.
Thirdly, labor unions. Having already staged a walkout at GM, and now one at Chrysler, the UAW is planning a similar "bargaining strategy" at Ford.
Including wages and benefits, Chrysler pays approximately $75 per hour to its workers. WHAT THE BLUE FUCK DO YOU BUG-EYED CHIMPS HAVE TO STRIKE ABOUT?!?
The big three Detroit auto makers LOST $15 BILLION last fiscal year. Lost. Not in the sense of government "cutbacks" where they simply didn't increase a budget as much as they'd originally wanted to, but in the sense that at the end of the year, they had $15 billion less than they started it with.
This is not the way to guarantee job security; if the company goes bankrupt, you will have NO job. UAW is sabotaging its members, and no-one even seems aware of the utterly incredible short-sightedness of the UAW's actions.
Fourth; FOX. Dude. We know you own "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." HOWEVER, being as you've cancelled the show, denied any possibility of a sequel, and generally damaged your own franchise significantly through executive stupidity, is there any reason to take you seriously when you claim that public showings of the musical episode, for audience sing-alongs, is damaging the brand? Did this really require legal action? How stupid. If you have a legitimate complaint, it's that they're not cutting you in on ticket sales; there's no reason not to demand royalties, but in the proud, golden-goose killing tradition of Hollywood, you had to go and shut it down, thus pissing off the fans, wasting a source of potential brand income, and making yourself look like your only priority is irritating - rather than entertaining - people.
Fifth: ok, RIAA, we know as music fans that you hate us. Now, we have proof.
See, the RIAA has been suing fans over filesharing for several years now, claiming hundreds of billions of dollars of losses due to file sharing - a totally unsubstantiated claim, by the way - per year as a justification.
But at trial, Sony Records' head of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, admitted under cross-examination that not only does the music industry have no actual hard data on their losses due to filesharing, but the campaign of lawsuits is costing them a friggin' fortune. That's right; every time they make a claim of huge losses due to filesharing, they are straight-out pulling the numbers out of their butts; Pariser admitted that not only do they not know, but they have no way to know; and they haven't even stopped to actually make a serious attempt to figure it out.
So, take their attitude towards you seriously; they're willing to sue THEMSELVES into the poorhouse to keep you buying music on CD, rather than using the Internet.
Sixth: if you're an aspiring horror novelist, and you want to write a novel about ritual cannibalism, there's an amazing resource out there for your research: it's called a library. You're not supposed to kill and eat your girlfriend to make your writing more authentic. I hope they throw you in a hole, and then fill in the hole, you sick fuck.
Seventh, although ordinarily I would give you a smirk at claiming that an adult drives "like a three-year-old," in fact, a three-year-old from Wisconsin used his Big Wheel to prove you wrong; he came to police attention by following the traffic laws better than the other drivers around him, as he ventured out into freeway traffic. I've often said that most adults could be out-driven by a monkey; now we know for SURE that most adults can be out-driven by a three-year-old. That's just sad.
Eighth, casting is underway for the latest Star Trek movie. Ordinarily, as I am not a Trekkie, I would kinda shrug and make a noncommittal grunting noise; however, in this case, the casting director has such a clear case of "OMGWTF?!" that I almost feel morally obligated to buy tickets when it comes out. Let's be clear; I last saw a movie in a theater over four years ago, but this might drive me back to the theater: "Scotty" is being played by Simon Pegg - Shaun, from Shaun of the Dead - and Sulu is being played by John Cho, a.k.a. Harold, from Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle.
I have to say, "You're doing it wrong!!!" but I will, nonetheless, go see it, so I guess in a twisted sort of way, they're doing it right.
Ninth, after which I will quit while I am ahead, if you have a gang, and you have firearms, and you're in Britain, and you attempt to rob a pub and get pounded mercilessly into helpless retreat by an airborne barrage of bar furniture, ashtrays, booze bottles, and other missiles hurled by the crowd at the pub, by whom you are overwhelmingly outnumbered: YOU FAIL.
